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NEWS: The city’s fire chief under fire. P. 6 wweek.com

VOL 41/31 06.03.2015

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THE GOONIES ASTORIA TOUR * WHY CYNDI LAUPER COULDN’T ENDURE “GOOD ENOUGH” ORAL HISTORY OF the shoot * ASTORIA MOVIE HISTORY

OREGON’S BEST-LOVED MOVIE TURNS 30

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THE GOONIES ARE US.

SINCE 1985, EVERY KID IN OREGON HAS ALWAYS KNOWN THIS—AND NOT JUST BECAUSE THE FILM WAS SHOT IN ASTORIA. Sure, The Goonies is one of the most loved kids’ movies of all time, a tale of young Chunk and Data and Mikey “Rudy” Walsh hunting for One-Eyed Willie’s pirate treasure while being chased by the nefarious Fratelli gang. As The Goonies turns 30 on Sunday, June 7—soon to be celebrated by thousands in tiny Astoria with bowling-alley parties with Chunk, and sailing trips with Sloth (see page 23)—it still hovers among the top 25 DVDs sold around the world each week. And yearround, tourists from as far away as Niger and Saudia Arabia and Tibet visit Astoria to see the Goondocks house and the bowling alley where Chunk smeared a milkshake on the window (see page 16). But the movie belongs to Oregonians, because it is Oregon. When the film was being shot in Astoria and Cannon Beach in the ’80s (see page 14 for an oral history), Oregon was a state full of misfits who stopped at the ocean. Except back then, nobody in New York or L.A.

really cared that we were weird. We were just that place from The Oregon Trail game where everybody had dysentery. And heck, just look at the movie’s plot: It’s a pack of nerds who band together to stop their house from being sold by greedy developers– and to stop themselves from being forced to move to Detroit—by riding their bikes to a dive bar and indulging their obsessions with pirates. In Portland today, you could almost film it as a documentary. But for a generation, The Goonies made being an outsider something to be proud of. As long as you have a heart of gold and a Baby Ruth and the help a gargantuan child-man dressed like a comic-book character, you’re good enough, just as Cyndi Lauper very reluctantly sang (see page 19). In the immortal words of Trail Blazers center Robin Lopez, “The Goonies are a closeknit group. They believe in themselves, even though there are doubters throwing darts at them outside. I posted that catch phrase a couple times, ‘Goonies never say die.’” Never say die, Portland.

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AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE GOONIES IN ASTORIA tom of the street for crowd control. There was nobody there, really. John Astin came walking up and introduced himself. He was a super-nice guy. We stood there and chitchatted. School let out, and a whole crowd of kids came out. There was over 100 there in a matter of a minute or two. One girl stood in front of us and said, ‘Damn, not one movie star anywhere.’ I looked at Mr. Astin, and he said, ‘Don’t ever get old.’” —Dave Johnson, officer (retired), Astoria Police Department

[email protected]

In November of 1984, Hollywood descended on the tiny fishing town of Astoria to shoot a mysterious movie about pirate treasure and something called a Goonie. Thirty years after its release, the movie is one of the most enduring cult films of all time, and people from all over the world travel to the Oregon Coast for a glimpse at their childhood. But what really happened when a film crew took over the small town for a few weeks? We talked with a handful of Astorians, plus folks who worked on the film, and discovered that everything from fake apes to real guns factored into making the classic. These are their stories. (Find a full interview with Jeff “Chunk” Cohen online at wweek. com/chunk).

“We’d be hanging out on the dock, and John Astin would walk by, and we’d go, “Doodle-dee-doo, snap snap.” He didn’t think that was very funny. Honestly, I would have rather seen [Astin’s then-wife] Patty Duke.” —Jim Furnish

SEAN ASTIN

THE GOONIES TAKE ASTORIA While the stars of The Goonies were unknown, producer Steven Spielberg and director Richard Donner weren’t the only famous folks on set—star Sean Astin’s stepfather, John Astin—aka Gomez Addams—and bona fide movie star James Brolin were there to take care of their kids, who set up camp at the Thunderbird Hotel, which eventually became the now-closed Red Lion Inn. “All the local guys would be down at the [Thunderbird] and drink coffee. It was the only good hotel in town, so the important people were staying there. I remember the kids were real bratty. They were spoiled knotheads. They’d act up like kids and spill things. There was one old waitress there, and they exasperated the hell out of her. Nobody gave a shit about those kids

because they weren’t famous. They were busy looking at James Brolin and John Astin and the famous people. Now that’s all changed.” —Jim Furnish, fisherman “John [Matuszak, who played Sloth] and I flew up, but were only there for a few days because there were some major problems with the makeup for Sloth. So there was nothing we could really do in front of the camera. I don’t drink, so I would escort John to all the bars so I could get him home. I was the John wrangler. I’d drink CocaCola and make sure he didn’t beat up the whole place.” —Randell Widner, Sloth stunt double “One day they were up filming at the Goonie house; I was at the bot-

“I was recovering from the chickenpox. We kind of kept that to ourselves. I didn’t want to get kicked out of the movie. One of the earlier scenes I shot was the Truffle Shuffle. If you look, all my belly, I have chickenpox, and they had to put makeup on it.” —Jeff Cohen, actor, Chunk “[Matuszak] was a big kid with very few limitations about how he conducted himself, but he was a little too big to play rough with people. I have a black belt in five different forms of martial arts. When we first started working out, he tried some stuff and I smacked him in the big chest. From that point on, if I told him it was time to go, he’d go. He was taking painkillers, and when you put a gallon of wine on top of that, you have trouble controlling yourself at times. He was like a lost child in a lot of ways.” —Randell Widner

ASTORIA LIFE VS. HOLLYWOOD LIFE Hollywood may have slowed traffic in town but it didn’t slow down Astorian life, often resulting in hilarious culture clashes. “I was in the restaurant in the Thunderbird. There was a commotion, people looking out the window. The L.A. people were freaking out. It was a hunter who had come back, and had a deer he had shot strapped to his car. He was proud of it. It was a good deer. And all the L.A. people were like, ‘What the fuck? Get that out of there.’ Dick Donner is such an animal lover. It was interesting to see these cultures clash. It’s like, ‘I’m proud, I shot this 10-point buck,’ and all the L.A. people are like, ‘Get that fucking car out of here. What’s wrong with you, you murderer?’” —Jeff Cohen “One morning, we had a shooter. There was somebody shooting out of the window of a house. We had people calling in on 911 that car windows were blowing out, and they realized they had a shooter up near the Goonie house. They put Spielberg in a patrol car and put him down in the backseat and got him out of there. It was two young children, 8 or 9 or 10 years old. Mom and dad had left to go to the hospital because she was pregnant. [The kids] got dad’s .22 rifle, and were up shooting out the bedroom window. Just shooting randomly. They could not understand why we were so upset. They shot out two or three car windows, and there was a little, old man mowing the lawn, and they kept shooting at him and making the dirt come up from behind him, but couldn’t hit him. The [police] chief was so angry, trying to explain that it wasn’t a BB gun, that you could get killed by a .22. ‘No, it’s just a BB gun.’ That was the big stand-the-hair-up-on-the-back-ofyour-neck moment.” —Dave Johnson

“I remember the kids were real bratty. They were spoiled knotheads. They’d act up like kids and spill things.” —Jim Furnish, fisherman

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BY AP KRYZA

VISION THING: A scruffy Steven Spielberg (right) Joe Pantoliano.

“The famous breakout scene from the jail, Steven Spielberg directed that. One of the ladies who worked at the courthouse gave us her memory of that scene being filmed. She said, ‘My only memory of Steven Spielberg was this scruffy-haired kid in a ball cap who kept coming into the courthouse with a pocketful of quarters to use the pay phone to check the weather.” —McAndrew Burns, Clatsop County Historical Society director

C O U R T E S Y O F T H E O R E G O N F I L M M U S E U M , D A I LY A S T O R I A N C O L L E C T I O N

“Before they started filming [in Cannon Beach’s Ecola State Park], they set up a job shack—a small trailer with desks and phones and stuff—and they put it on the northwest edge of the parking lot facing east and west. I said, ‘You guys think you might want to turn that so it’s north to south, or get some wires to hold it down? About the time you’re filming, the wind’s going to be coming up that bluff.’ ‘Well, why would we do that?’ ‘Well, the wind’s going to blow over your trailer.’ ‘That’ll never happen.’ Well, I came to work one day, and the trailer was flopped over on its side.” —Phillip Lines, former ranger, Ecola State Park

THE BIG CHASE

The film’s chaotic opening—featuring a jailbreak and a chase through Astoria and Cannon Beach—was initially way crazier than what made it to the screen. “During the chase, early on, a circus wagon gets tipped over, and some apes escape. Their shtick is to drive little red cars. So they end up trying to steal my golf cart in a

scene that went on the floor. And they steal my kid’s Mustang. The apes were really well done. I feel sorry for the stunt guys who had to live in those suits, they were really good.” —Curtis Hansen, actor, Mr. Perkins “There were two gorillas in a Mustang convertible. They wrecked a brand-new car, but it was never part of the movie. And there was a part on the dock. During the big car chase, they were supposed to come flying down the dock. One police car was supposed to go through the railing and land in a boat. Somebody screwed up, and the jeep they were driving—a rental they’d gotten in Portland that they weren’t supposed to mess up—somebody mistimed and the police car hit the back of it. The police car landed on the boat, where it was supposed to. Donner goes, ‘Somebody get me a car, I gotta go fire somebody.’” —Dave Johnson

ASTORIA ON FILM

Astoria wasn’t just a location. The production put the city to work. Police officers pulled traffic duty and even appeared in the film. Local lumberyards and body shops became prop shops. And aspiring filmmakers got a chance to excel behind the camera. “I was 19 and a college student studying film and television production. At that point,

I had been making short films for about five of the paint shops in town to paint them. years, but had never spent any significant They tried to spend money in town.” time on a professional movie set. I was also —Dave Johnson a huge admirer of Steven Spielberg’s films and longed for the opportunity to watch him “When they came to town, they scouted work. I approached location manager Tony locations, and a certain amount of time Amatullo about the possibility of becoming went by. When they came back, the McDoninvolved somehow. It was from him that I ald’s was built. They were going to scrap the learned that Richard Donner was directing, scene [with Chunk watching the chase from not Spielberg. But that was good, too. My the bowling alley] because the McDonald’s most treasured memory on the set of The was there in the window. Donner was upset because it was throwing things Goonies was Richard Donner introoff, and somebody said, ‘Have ducing me to Steven Spielberg as a Chunk put a slice of pizza up “fellow director.” To this day, that SEE there, and we won’t see the remains one of the highlights of my GOONIES sign.’ And that’s why there’s a life as a filmmaker and storyteller.” EVENTS slice of pizza up there.” —Mick Alderman, filmmaker and —McAndrew Burns author of Three Weeks With The Goo- ON nies: On Location in Astoria, Oregon PAGE 23. “When they’re breaking out of the jail, before they leave they “The famous breakout scene from pour gasoline around the jail the jail, Steven Spielberg directed and set a fire so people can’t that. One of the ladies who worked follow them. That was actuat the courthouse gave us her memory of that scene being filmed. She ally contact cement that we sold them. said, ‘My only memory of Steven Spiel- It’s pretty flammable. We never knew berg was this scruffy-haired kid in a ball what they were doing. They’d buy fence cap who kept coming into the courthouse posts and stuff for the inside of the house, with a pocketful of quarters to use the pay including a staircase. It was pretty obvious they were from the production. They phone to check the weather.” —McAndrew Burns, Clatsop County His- opened a store charge account for Amblin [Entertainment]. We knew who they were, torical Society director but we didn’t know in detail what they “The police cars came in the middle of the were doing. The film business is great businight on a car carrier. It was hysterical: ness. It’s great for guys like us.” They were all Hazzard County Sheriff cars —Jeff Newenhof, co-owner, from The Dukes of Hazzard. They hired one City Lumber Company Willamette Week JUNE 3, 2015 wweek.com

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1114 Marine Drive, Astoria, 3252233, columbianvoodoo.com.

Cannon Beach

Some of the Goonies’ most iconic images— Brand’s girlie-bike ride down the forested hills of Ecola State Park, the rough-and-tumble Lighthouse Lounge gang hideout, and the mighty Haystack Rock—all come from Cannon Beach, an hour south of Astoria. The Lighthouse Lounge was constructed only for the movie, and torn down thereafter; a picnic shelter stands on the grass near its former site, as a pale echo. At Haystack Rock, meanwhile, tragedy is striking. The starfish in its famed tide pools have been dying of a mysterious disease, dissolving to white mush. Almost 90 percent are gone since last year, giving Haystack the faint aspect of a gravestone. But it is still beautiful at twilight, and tourist shops nearby sell Goonies-themed medallions whose holes you can line up at sunset with the “needles,” the name given to the many smaller rocks that stutter along Haystack’s edge.

826 Marine Drive, Astoria, 325-3321, lcbowl.com.

The midcentury Lower Columbia Bowl, which now offers free soda refills to Oregon Lottery players, is the bowling alley where Chunk witnessed “the most amazing thing I ever saw,” out the window—the prison-break car chase by the Fratelli brothers that begins the movie. The window view contains a McDonald’s sign not visible onscreen: This was covered up by the pizza slice Chunk smeared against the window. “It took six or seven tries for him to get it right,” says one of the bowling alley’s longtime employees, Cindy McEwan. “By the end, he was crying. He couldn’t get the pizza in the right spot to block the sign.” The alley now has a little shrine where Chunk once stood—although they’ve actually raised the floor three feet—with a thick guest book signed by hundreds from around the country and world, from England to Australia to Niger. “The farthest away anybody ever came from was Tibet,” says McEwan. “He came in with an interpreter.” On The Goonies’ 25th anniversary in 2010, the manager decided to make strawberry milkshakes, just like the one Chunk crushed against the window next to the piece of pizza. “I told him that’d be a mistake,” McEwan says. “They’ll try to re-enact it. And what do you know? The first people that order a milkshake, that’s what they wanted to do.” The bowling alley will not offer strawberry milkshakes on the upcoming 30th anniversary.

BARS OF THE WORKERS

Labor Temple, 934 Duane St., Astoria, 325-0801, labortemple.com; Mary Todd’s Workers Bar & Grill, 281 W Marine Drive, 338-7291.

Forever on the Goondocks, Astoria’s oldest bars are dedicated wholeheartedly to the workers, from fisherman’s bar the Portway—densely hung with life preservers signed in Sharpie by all the old regulars—to Mary Todd’s Workers Bar & Grill, where on our last visit a man loudly insisted into his phone that he “wasn’t going to haul my ass all the way out there for 38 salmon.” Mary Todd’s has cheap prime rib on Fridays, bras hanging from ceiling fans, and a $9 drink called the Yucca that locals will either recommend or warn you to avoid for exactly the same reason: The drink

contains about a fifth of a bottle of HRD vodka. By the time you leave, you’ll know everyone in the bar. Labor Temple, a bar and diner located in an old union hall, is no longer a union shop as of four years ago—although it is apparently a popular target of local labor organizers. The diner recently stopped its tradition of midnight breakfast (served till 2 pm) because 1 it attracted town drunks to the bar. “I had a little squirt gun,” says longtime bartender Rhonda, “and I’d squirt people if they were getting out of line. I probably 86’d half the people in town.”

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Exchange Street between 18th and 20th streets, Astoria.

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ECOLA STATE PARK AND HAYSTACK ROCK

LOWER COLUMBIA BOWL

The field where Andy leads a cheerleading squad in the opening credits—thus establishing her 1980s top-of-the-peckingorder status—had been home to the Astoria High Fishermen since 1928, ground for the Fishermen’s epic rivalry against the cross-town Knappa Loggers. But as of September 2014, the Warren grounds are fallow, future home of an Oregon Health & Science University hospital expansion. As part of a deal that Astoria football coach Howard Rub hailed as a “tremendous partnership,” the city built the Fishermen a new artificial-turf field as a cap for an old landfill.

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Astoria was a home to the Goonies even before the movie was filmed. Oregon’s greatest achievement in beach towns is—as the locals will tell you—a “quaint drinking village with a fishing problem,” full of working-class seafarers, thirdgeneration shopkeepers and Portland runaways. It ain’t just the Goonies house and the old Clatsop County jail. It is a forever-home for misfits with heart, a town of dive bars and breweries, ramshackle 1920s mansions with boarded-up siding, and a standalone J.C. Penney that resolutely refuses to say die. Here is a guide to the places in Astoria where The Goonies was filmed—and the places where the Goonie spirit lives on. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

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The worst thing Chunk ever did: “I mixed a pot 2 of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa! And then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.” This could have only happened here, in this 90-year-old balconied theater with an adjunct live-music lounge called the Voodoo. Musical guests of the past two months included Corrina Repp, Stephen Malkmus, and the Minders. For $17, the building’s brunch-happy Columbian Cafe will cure the hangover Voodoo caused with the breakfast-hash equivalent of omakase at a sushi bar—chef’s choice, no substitutions. Mine involved mushrooms, sausage, bok choy, walnut pesto, much egg, much spice and no carbs whatsoever.

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The Stop-n-Snack mini-mart, featured briefly in The Goonies’ bike-ride and car-chase scenes (and in a much longer outtake involving a brawl), is now a coffee roastery with medium roasts, biscotti, and a side business in ceramic ware. “From the 1890s to the 1990s, this was a little grocery store,” says co-owner and roaster Rick Murray, who has the sun-tightened skin and rough chin beard of a fisherman. “And then the big grocery stores came and did what big grocery stores do to little grocery stores. Good for me, I guess. Now I live upstairs and roast downstairs.” Before starting his roastery, Murray worked at Starbucks for 10 years. “But they forgot everything I taught them,” he says.

The docks. This is where the Fratelli brothers conclude the Astoria portion of their car chase (which continues, magically, on Cannon Beach), and it is where Stef dunked herself into a crab barrel. But this year, most of the fishing at these docks is conducted by a horde of 2,300 sea lions and harbor seals—10 times as many as there were five years ago—a layer of braying cellulite coating every available dock surface. Their maddening racket can be heard all the way up the cliffs at the Goonies house. Around Astoria, rumors abound of sea lion attacks. One guy will tell you they ate the fish right off his friend’s hook. The next says they ate a shih tzu off a leash. Astorians have tested electric mats to piss off the sea lions, and local police brought in a 16-foot fiberglass orca, which they towed around by boat in futile hopes of scaring them. Lately, they’ve been scaring sea lions with beach balls. On a more sinister note, at least ten sea lions have been shot or killed. “No one’s happy,” says James, a bartender at Rogue ale house along the waterfront. “The fisherman aren’t happy. The cruise ships aren’t happy. The Native Americans aren’t happy. They’re eating all the fish.”

Sandi Preston, from her home in California, prayed for the Goonies house. She loved The Goonies so much she prayed for four years after visiting Astoria the first time, until the house inhabited by One-Eyed-Willie true-believer Mikey Walsh finally came up for sale. “I asked God if he would give me the Goonie house,” Preston told The Washington Post in 2010, “and he did.” It is still a site of pilgrimage for thousands each year. To get there, you follow the Goonies parking arrows away from the house to the mildly disheveled John Jacob Astor Elementary on 38th Street—everything in Goonieville is disheveled, because the beach air does grim work—and then walk three blocks uphill to a sign that says “Private Drive: Goonies on Foot Welcomed.” It is the second such sign: The first was stolen almost immediately after being planted, and so the current version is plunged into heavy concrete. On warm days, the sidewalks up and down 38th Street fill with the faithful, gawking at a wealth of no-trespassing signs, and signs asking visitors that they please, dear Lord, not block the driveway. An older man walks out to fetch his newspaper and eyes a family of six pushing a stroller uphill. “Goonies, Goonies, Goonies, Goonies!” he exclaims, and shuts his front door tight. Atop the private drive, the Preston-Walsh house sports two flags—one American, one Israeli—and a bright yellow Porsche Boxster tagged with a “NOBAMA” sticker. On our visit, Preston’s handlebar-mustached husband, John, was replacing the front steps. “For the upcoming 30th anniversary tours?” we asked. “I’m building steps,” he said gruffly, “because we need steps.” The Goondocks house, including the attic, will be open for public tours on The Goonies 30th anniversary weekend, June 5-7. You will be welcomed on foot, but not with your shoes on.

304 37th St., Astoria, 325-7768.

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BEER CANNERIES OF ASTORIA

Rogue Ales Public House, 100 39th St. (Pier 39), 325-5964, rogue.com; Buoy Beer, 1 8th St., 325-4540, buoybeer.com; Fort George Brewery, 1483 Duane St., 325-7468, fortgeorgebrewery.com.

When filming began on The Goonies in 1984, Astoria’s fishing economy was in crisis—and houses were indeed getting sold back to the banks. The old canneries, including the 1899-founded Bumble Bee cannery, were closing, and food stamps had become such a currency they were reportedly accepted as beer money at Astoria’s Portway Tavern on West Marine Drive. Once home to the American Can Company, Astoria Warehousing now hauls in canned salmon from Alaska by truck. The last tuna cannery in Astoria is Josephson’s Smokehouse, which smokes and cans albacore as a craft product, in the back of their storefront. But the biggest industry in Astoria now is not fishing but tourism, and so alongside a seemingly abandoned cannery museum, the Bumble Bee cannery has found new life as a huge, bustling Rogue Ales Public House serving up Astoria-exclusive sour and barrelaged beers. The cannery at Cannery Pier is now home to Buoy Beer, which already hosts a tap at seemingly every bar in Astoria. But by far the biggest cannery in Astoria is Fort George Brewery, now the 12thlargest craft brewer in Oregon. Pro tip: If you don’t plan to eat, skip the spacious brewpub in favor of the much more capacious beer list at Fort George’s tiny brewery tasting room.

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Data’s filmic home is owned by the same family, the Fullers, who once also owned Mikey’s house next door. Data’s massive house is still blue as a Windows homescreen, still technically within zipline distance of Mikey’s, and still owned by the Fuller family—split now between heirs Lloyd and Catherine.

OREGON FILM MUSEUM AT THE CLATSOP COUNTY JAIL

732 Duane St., Astoria, 325-2203, oregonfilmmuseum.org.

Every now and then, somebody shows up at the Oregon Film Museum and sadly asks to bail out his cousin. It used to be the jail, and people who’ve been locked up have very long memories. (“I’ve been in there,” says Rhonda, the bartender from Labor Temple bar down the street. “I’m not proud of it.”) It was also the jail the Fratelli brothers broke out of, in the whiz-bang car-chase action sequence that kicks off The Goonies. The real jail is now across the street. As a museum, it’s only 5 years old—created just in time for Astoria’s 25th anniversary Goonies celebration. Within, there are jail cells, a video about Kindergarten Cop, and a series of scenes you can re-create while filming yourself with digital cameras— the car scene from The Goonies, somethingsomething Free Willy, and something-something from Cthulhu. It is a museum based less on artifacts, and more on nostalgia itself.

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FLAVEL HOUSE MUSEUM

441 8th St., 325-2203, Astoria, cumtux.org.

In the film, Mikey’s dad is assistant curator at an unnamed museum. This, as it turns out, is the actual Flavel House Museum, named after heroic sandbar pilot Capt. George Flavel, who was hailed by newspapers in the late 19th century as a “grave, saturnine, sphinx; sour, dour, cold and crabbed, turning to gold all he touched without a friend and suspicious of all.” He was also one of Astoria’s first millionaires. He married his 14-year-old sweetheart at the age of 30—which was considered normal—but scandalized the township by installing the region’s first indoor toilet. Today, the home is beautiful but oddly haunted, arranged as if the family had only just now escaped in a hurry, leaving children’s books strewn about the bed, the closet door ajar, and a bird carefully preserved under glass. Meanwhile, the family’s descendants all moved into a different Flavel house that was finally auctioned off last December. Derelict and in ruin, it had stood vacant for the 24 years since owner “Hatchet” Harry Flavel stabbed a man in the abdomen and fled the state. He was finally arrested, months later in Pennsylvania, after stealing towels from a motel. Willamette Week JUNE 3, 2015 wweek.com

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WHY DID CYNDI LAUPER HATE HER GOONIES SONG SO MUCH?

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BY M AT T H E W S I N G E R

[email protected]

The Goonies weren’t good enough for Cyndi Lauper. Oh, sure, she’s on record stating the opposite. But for the better part of 30 years, the iconic, baby-voiced singer of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” has all but disavowed “The Goonies ’R’ Good Enough,” the movie’s theme song, which she wrote and performed. She’s called the song “terrible” in interviews, and for a long time refused to include it on any of her greatest-hits compilations, or play it live. That’s pretty harsh treatment for a top-10 single, one whose Technicolor pop sound fits comfortably among Lauper’s other megahits of the era. Nonetheless, “Good Enough,” as it was originally titled, remains a significant appendage of The Goonies’ legacy. It plays at various points throughout the film, including the end credits. It’s been covered several times, and digitized for video games. The twopart video—a truly wackadoo 12-minute epic bringing together a cadre of pro wrestlers, much of The Goonies’ cast, a then-unknown band called the Bangles and, in a fourth-wallshattering cameo, Steven Spielberg—functions essentially as a Bizarro World sequel. But the song’s lasting associations are with The Goonies and not Lauper herself, which might explain why she’s largely forsaken it. At the time, it must

have seemed like she was doing Warner Bros. a favor. Yeah, the movie had Spielberg producing and Richard Donner, the director of Superman, at the helm. But Lauper was coming off one of the most successful debut albums of all-time, 1983’s She’s So Unusual, a 16-times-platinum smash whose four major singles still get airplay in the world’s collective unconscious. She didn’t need the exposure. But what the producers thought the film needed was a real-life star who could embody The Goonies in the flesh. “It was an important music project for us in the sense that there were kids involved,” says Joel Sill, the film’s music supervisor. “We started to figure out, who would be the best candidate that reflected The Goonies? Or at least the word ‘Goonies.’” With her rainbow-colored hair and selfconsciously kooky image, Lauper emerged as the ideal choice to sing an anthem for a group of misfit heroes. But “Good Enough” was not written for the movie. At the time Warner Bros. came calling, Lauper and her producer, Lennie Petze, were in the early stages of gathering material for the follow-up to She’s So Unusual. One of the first songs they received came from songwriters Arthur Stead and Stephen Broughton Lunt. With its synthesized marimba riff

(which, according to Stead, was extracted from an unused song he intended for Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley) and fluttering flutes, the music conveyed a vague sense of adventure. And while the song might not reference any plot points—it’s really more about clinging to a fraying relationship— the general sentiment fit the film’s premise: The Goonies aren’t perfect. They’re not superheroes. But they’re good enough. When Petze played the demo for executives, “they went crazy for it,” he says. The title, though, needed work. Spielberg wanted the song to tie back to the movie in some way, and if Lauper wasn’t going to alter the lyrics, the best way he saw to do that was to cram “The Goonies” into the name. “I think she felt it was an infringement on her creativity, which I agreed with,” Sill says. “But all of us had a bigger responsibility to the movie. It was a big investment we all had in utilizing the music to sell the film, and the film would then sell the music.” Lauper relented, though not without a fight. “I wasn’t in that meeting,” Petze says, “but I think she may have said, ‘You’re out of line, Steven.’” It wasn’t her only clash with Spielberg. When it came time to do the video, he and Lauper met for a brainstorming session. It was an ambitious project, to be divided into two parts, so it made sense to have the guy behind Indiana Jones in the director’s chair. Spielberg presented his ideas, and according to Sill, Lauper “just dismissed them, in a way that was not really considerate of Steven’s creativity.”

Donner ended up directing. The video’s plot, as best can be surmised, involves Lauper attempting to save her family’s gas station (and her, uh, vegetable stand) from creditors who want to turn it into a Benihana. In the first half, Lauper, who was then in a partnership with the World Wrestling Federation, is pursued through a familiar-looking cave by a gaggle of WWF heels—simultaneously playing the creditors and a crew of pirates—and finds herself cornered on a bridge. She calls out for Spielberg’s help, who’s shown sitting in an editing bay and, perhaps as a wink toward their earlier disagreements, admits to being out of ideas. Eventually, the action returns to the gas station, where Andre the Giant appears from a cloud of smoke and chases “Rowdy” Roddy Piper into the street. Then everybody dances. Maybe it was the contentious video shoot, or the creative concessions she was forced into, but by the end of the ’80s, Lauper, who also declined an interview for this piece, was content to pretend “Good Enough” never existed. In the last decade, though, her stance has softened a bit. In 2003, the song finally appeared on an album bearing her name, The Essential Cyndi Lauper. Giving in to fan demand, it’s also popped up in her live sets again. And in 2012, she recorded a parody of the song, titled “Taffy Butt,” for an episode of Fox’s Bob’s Burgers paying homage to The Goonies. For Lauper, that version is more than good enough. “Oh, it’s a classic too,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “Very funny and in poor taste. My son finally thinks I am funny!” Willamette Week JUNE 3, 2015 wweek.com

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C O U R T E S Y O F WA R N E R B R OT H E R S ; I M D B . C O M

GOONIE ENOUGH? 30 YEARS LATER, ARE THE GOONIES STILL GOONIES? BY AP KRYZA

[email protected]

The Goonies always had to grow up—especially after 30 years. But have the movie’s young stars retained their Goonieness, that essential mix of heart, underdog drive and inherent weirdness? Here’s how the seven stars rank in Goonieness these days.

ANDY

GOONIENESS: B-FLAT, AT BEST.

DATA

GOONIENESS: NO MORE FORTUNE AND GLORY.

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CHUNK

7. KERRI GREEN (ANDY)

THEN: The cheerleader who twitterpated the Walsh brothers’ emotions was the go-to crush of nerdy adolescent boys throughout the ’80s in films such as Lucas and Summer Rental. It must have been the poofy hair. NOW: Post-pubescence, Green has disappeared a bit, with small roles on oldpeople shows such as Murder, She Wrote, ER and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and a star turn in 2012’s obscure Lifetime-esque drama Complacent.

6. KE HUY QUAN (DATA)

THEN: As Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and pintsized inventor Data, Quan pretty much got to live out every kid’s fantasy before his Adam’s apple even surfaced. NOW: Cuteness firmly behind him, Quan spent a little time using his tae kwon do skills as stunt and fight coordinator on films such as X-Men and The One. That was 15 years ago. Now, he’s likely to be seen wandering unnoticed at conventions.

GOONIENESS: HALF AND HALF.

BRAND

GOONIENESS: ONE IN THE BUSH.

MOUTH

GOONIENESS: KIND OF NICE, WHEN HIS MOUTH ISN’T SCREWING IT UP.

5. JEFF COHEN (CHUNK)

THEN: Token fat kid. Truffle shuffler. Keeper of the Baby Ruth. NOW: Now svelte, Cohen is a hotshot entertainment lawyer with a Beverly Hills firm and a book called The Dealmaker’s Ten Commandments. But despite sounding like a member of Mr. Perkins’ country club, Cohen still maintains relationships with locals he met while filming in Astoria, and backs up his Goonieness by asserting he keeps a Donkey Kong machine in his office.

4. JOSH BROLIN (BRAND)

THEN: Hollywood prince. Also enjoyed drug-fueled adventures as a member of a teenage surf gang that stole car radios for dope. NOW: He’s basically a household name for his roles in No Country for Old Men and Men in Black 3. But he’s still got some blundering Goonie heart, as evidenced by a filmed 2013 bar fight that ended in a seemingly endless hug with the bouncer.

3. COREY FELDMAN (MOUTH)

THEN: Tiger Beat centerfold. The most emotionally stable Corey. NOW: Were it not for the revelations in Feldman’s awesomely titled memoir, Coreyography, that his drug addiction was exacerbated by sexual abuse, it might be easier to laugh at his wellpublicized, stripper-fueled birthday party, reality shows and social-media meltdowns. But we can still laugh at his horrible band, Truth Movement. He’s exactly the adult that wise-cracking, amoral Mouth would want to be. Except for the crippling sadness.

MARTHA

THEN: She beat most of Portland to the punch by dressing like your grandma long before it was cool, romanced River Phoenix and braved The Mosquito Coast. NOW: Plimpton’s fame may have fizzled, but she’s now a respected TV and stage actress, and stage actresses get mad geek cred. She’s also a singer and an abortion rights activist, continuing Stef’s quest to end unpaid babysitting. That’s heart, and heart is a Goonie’s most important trait.

1. SEAN ASTIN (MIKEY)

MIKEY

THEN: Son of Patty Duke and Gomez Addams. Weezer of juice in Encino Man.

GOONIENESS: NEVER SAID DIE. GOONIE FOREVER.

C O U R T E S Y O F WA R N E R B R OT H E R S

GOONIENESS: DRAMA QUEEN.

2. MARTHA PLIMPTON (STEF)

NOW: Astin tried to be a badass in Toy Soldiers and Memphis Belle and (sort of ) in 50 First Dates. But he only really stood out in roles with Mikey in their DNA. In The Lord of the Rings, Samwise was the heart of the franchise, though he sought to destroy treasure rather than claim it. In Rudy, Astin taught a generation of kids that it’s OK to be a loser who is terrible at his intended sport as long as you’re Catholic. He’s widely reported to come off like Mikey all grown up. And he’s still committed to his friends, so much so that he even had a cameo in Feldman’s atrocious, auto-tuned EDM music video “Ascension Millennium” in 2013—while reading One-Eyed Willie’s map.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MOVIES IN SHORT CIRCUIT

Astoria ain’t just The Goonies. The little coastal town has a bizarrely huge footprint in popcorn moviedom; There are more big-name films shot in Astoria than in Portland. “The town burned down in 1922,” says McAndrew Burns, director of the Clatsop County Historical Society. “So we look like this perfectly preserved 1920s town. We can do river, we can do ocean. We can look like anything. Plus we’re willing to inconvenience ourselves to get movies shot here.” MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

CHARACTERISTIC EXCLAMATIONS: “Number five…is alive!” “No disassemble!”

the neighbors would prefer you park if you’re walking up to the Goonies house.

Benji the Hunted (1987)

CHARACTERISTIC EXCLAMATIONS: “It’s not a tumor!” “Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina!”

PLOT: Benji gets lost at sea, and then scuba dives, and then adopts four cougar babies and tries to get them to a cougar mommy. Benji is a dog. ASTORIA ON FILM: Mostly it’s the woods around Astoria, which inexplicably are full of grizzlies and wolves.

ASTORIA FILM HIGHLIGHTS

CHARACTERISTIC EXCLAMATIONS: “Ruff ruff!” “Arf!”

Short Circuit (1986)

Kindergarten Cop (1990)

PLOT: A military robot gets all sentient and ends up in Astoria with Ally Sheedy, who loves animals and sentient robots. ASTORIA ON FILM: Sheedy’s house is at 197 Hume Ave. The windmill is gone.

ASTORIA

PLOT: Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to Bumfuck, Nowhere, to find a kid in witness protection, who is just so cute, and then save him from his grandmother. ASTORIA ON FILM: The school is John Jacob Astor Elementary, which is where

ASTORIA ON FILM: They played a West Coast sunset backward to get a fake East Coast sunrise. The bastards. Also, the spot where Willy goes free is the Hammond Boat Basin in Warrenton, across the harbor from Astoria.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

CHARACTERISTIC EXCLAMATIONS: “God, I hate that whale!” “Please, he’s gonna die!”

ASTORIA ON FILM: The city acts as a stand-in for ancient Japan. Don’t ask questions, it will only confuse you.

The Ring Two (2005)

PLOT: Turtles. Are ninjas. OMG.

CHARACTERISTIC EXCLAMATIONS: “Help! I’m a turtle and I can’t get up!” “Schwing!”

Free Willy (1993)

PLOT: Willy the orca—a vicious sea predator with a cute face—needs to get free. A little boy agrees.

THE PLOT: Naomi Watts moves somewhere creepy that turns out to be Astoria, and then a girl from a TV screen possesses her son and tries to kill her. ASTORIA ON FILM: Watts works at The Daily Astorian, which is an actual newspaper. But the part of The Daily Astorian is played by Pacific Coast Medical Supply. CHARACTERISTIC EXCLAMATIONS: “Mommy!” “I’m not your fucking mommy!”

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TICKETSWEST

GOONIES TRIVIA NIGHT Baked Alaska is the obligatory “nice place” in town,

SHOT IN ASTORIA BUS TOURS This will be what most people who came down to

Astoria for Goonies are actually excited about doing: touring the spots where The Goonies (and other movies—see page 21) happened, with a Goonies superfan (or employee of the city) actually telling them what happened there. Mouth’s house, the bowling alley, the car chase and the docks. You can do this on your own with our tour on page 16, or ride one of these buses for $35 so you can be tipsy the whole time and not have to park. But for this one weekend, the actual Goondocks house, Mikey Walsh’s, will actually be open to the public. So you can go up into the attic and such and pretend. Tours June 5-7. $35. Tickets at ticketswest.com.

GOONIES BLOCK PARTY The city of Astoria is shutting down 9th Street downtown

for the sake of The Goonies’ decade, with a DeLorean on display for some reason. Eighties, man! After 8 pm, the party moves inside to the event center, with a dance and a DJ and such, and a band called 1984 that plays things from approximately 1984. There will be prizes for the people who played dress-up, and a Truffle Shuffle contest, whose winner will lead a group truffle shuffle at Warren Field on June 6. Astoria Event Center, 255 9th St., 791-5843, astoriaeventcenter.com. Noon-2 am Friday, June 5. $15 tickets at ticketswest.com.

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE GOONIES A presentation by various loosely associated, Goonies-

related people: Goonies “kid wrangler” Mark Marshall, Sloth stunt double Randell Widner, Goonies book author Mick Alderman, and retired Astoria policeman Paul Gillum. Tickets are $20 at ticketswest.com, with multiple presentations throughout the weekend. Astoria Event Center, 255 9th St., 791-5843, astoriaeventcenter.com. $20 tickets at ticketswest.com.

FORT GEORGE TRUFFLE SHUFFLE Fort George will tap Truffle Shuffle Stout. Stout because

Chunk. Get it? Fort George Brewery, 1483 Duane St., 3257468, fortgeorgebrewery.com. Friday, June 5. 11 am-midnight.

ECOLA STATE PARK TOUR Patrick Lines, retired Oregon parks ranger, was on the

set during the filming of The Goonies at Ecola State Park and Haystack Rock way back during the heady days of ’84. He’ll share stories about Hollywood people not knowing much about Oregon weather, at various times throughout the weekend. Ecola State Park, 84318 Ecola State Park Road, Cannon Beach. 6-8 pm Thursday, June 4; 2-4 pm Friday-Saturday, June 5-6; 9:30 am-1:30 pm Sunday, June 7. Free; day-use parking fee applies.

FAREWELL TO WARREN FIELD Because of a funny agreement with the next-door hos-

pital (see page 16), John Warren Field, the site of Andy’s cheerleading practice in The Goonies, will no longer be the home of the fighting Fishermen. It will be the home of people fighting liver disease and such. So to commemorate the end of all cheerleading in Astoria that matters, there will be Cyndi Lauper covers, and bluegrass (which is how America celebrates sadness), and an XRAY.FM DJ set featuring from former Willamette Week music editor Casey Jarman, and also what organizers claim to be the largest HD screening of The Goonies, like, ever. Ever! John Warren Field, Exchange Street between 18th and 20th streets. Saturday, June 6. 6 pm. $10. All ages.

with the ribs and the steaks and the crab cakes. The bar attached to the restaurant has Goonies trivia. Baked Alaska, 1 12th St., 325-7414, bakedak.com. Friday, June 5. 7 pm. Free.

PIRATE BASH Um, pirates! And boats! At a museum devoted to boats!

There will be a “drunk tank” themed after One-Eyed Willy, a pirate costume contest and “grog” at a cash bar, but don’t get too riled up: The Coast Guard hangs out here. And they’re sort of surly. Columbia River Maritime Museum, 1792 Marine Drive, 325-2323, crmm.org. Friday, June 5. 7-9 pm. Free.

GROWING UP GOONIE WITH JEFF COHEN Jeff Cohen, aka Chunk, will talk about his days as a

Goonie. Now thin and a successful entertainment lawyer (see page 20), he won’t sign autographs, but will likely tell stories about a Hawaiian shirt being crappy for Astoria weather, and how hard it was to get the pizza slice in the right spot. We know, because we talked to him, too. See our oral history on page 14, or a full Q&A with Jeff Cohen at wweek.com/chunk. Liberty Theater, 1203 Commercial St., 325-5922, liberty-theater.org. 10:30 am Friday-Saturday, June 5-6. $23.

2225 NE Broadway

Open Daily 11-9,closed Mondays Our trikes still roam the streets! Book us for your next event, party, lunch, wedding or any other catering needs www.tacopedalerpdx.com Email [email protected] or follow us

BOAT RIDE WITH SLOTH You totally can’t do this unless you’re already doing this or

find a ticket scalper online, but just in case you get lucky: Some people will be riding on an old boat with Sloth, or at least Sloth’s stunt double—alongside the actor who played evil golf-course developer Elgin Perkins—telling stories and such while the mighty sea turns your stomach. But the boat, the Lady Washington, is not the boat from The Goonies—that boat’s been scrapped. It’s from one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Oh well. Just know that if you see a pirate ship Friday evening, Sloth might be there. Friday, June 6. 6 pm.

HALEY JOHNSEN WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3RD AT 6PM

Oregon’s own 2011 American Idol semi-finalist performs music from her new EP, ‘Through The Blue’

TRUFFLE SHUFFLE 5K RUN/WALK Any run themed for Chunk, we suppose, has to allow

THE WEATHER MACHINE

the walking. Cannon Beach, near Tolovana State Recreation Site. Sunday, June 7. 9 am. $20 registration at ticketswest.com.

FRIDAY, JUNE 4TH AT 6PM

Based in Portland OR, The Weather Machine released its first fulllength album in 2013 after a blustery winter of recording on the Oregon Coast. With strong ties to the region, the 5-piece found its roots in the Pacific Northwest’s unique folk aesthetic, but has since developed hard-hitting, theatrical rock performance, drawing comparisons to acts like The Kinks, Hey Marseilles, and Josh Ritter.

GOONIES SCAVENGER HUNT A geocaching crew has put together a treasure hunt for the weekend, for geeks with the smartphones. Go to www.goonies.guide to get your invite.

THE SHRIKE SUNDAY, JUNE 7TH AT 5PM

LEGO GOONIES The VirtuaLUG online Lego group recreated Goonies sets

The Shrike’s musical heritage is derived from such classic bands as Led Zeppelin, Pat Benatar, Heart, and Aerosmith, but the band does not limit itself to one classic sound. Modern flourishes and eclectic arrangements give this band a dynamic hard-rocking sound infused with passages of light and darkness.

out of Lego—from Mikey’s house to the hideout to parts of the caves. They’ll be on display all weekend. The jail’s in the wrong spot on the set they made, sure, but when you have a Lego Data ziplining to a Lego Goonies house, and a Lego pirate ship sailing out of a sea cave, the little things cease to matter. This will be on display at the Astoria Armory, which doubles as the event center for all things Goonies in town. Astoria Armory, 1636 Exchange St., 791-6064, astoriaarmory.com. Free.

BLUESTREAK LIVE! PRESENTS

MARY FLOWER MONDAY, JUNE 8TH AT 7PM

An internationally known and award-winning picker, singer/songwriter and teacher, 2011 Muddy Award winner Mary Flower relocated from Denver to the vibrant Portland, Oregon, music scene in 2004 and hasn’t looked back since. She continues to please crowds and critics at folk festivals and concert stages domestically and abroad, embodying a luscious and lusty mix of rootsy, acoustic-blues guitar and vocal styles that span a number of idioms – from Piedmont to the Mississippi Delta, with stops in ragtime, swing, folk and hot jazz.

THE EARNEST LOVERS THURSDAY, JUNE 11TH AT 6PM

COSMIC BOWLING Chunk! If you want to hang out with Chunk, who’s

VIRTUALUG

now skinny and successful and very affable and whose actual name is Jeff Cohen, you hang out here, in the bowling alley where he smeared the pizza against the glass (see page 16). He showed up on the 25th anniversary, anyway. But don’t smear crap on the windows, please. It took them forever to clean up after the last time. Lower Columbia Bowl, 826 Marine Drive, 325-3321, lcbowl.com. 9:30 pm-midnight Friday-Saturday, June 5-6. $12.

The Earnest Lovers are vintage honky tonk heartbreak serenaders Pete Krebs (Hazel, Stolen Sweets, Portland Playboys) and Leslie Beia (Copper & Coal, The Lowburners). An alliance forged from their mutual and devoted love of the golden era of country duets, the Lovers have set out to capture that classic sound and to invigorate it with new life in the form of original compositions.

Willamette Week JUNE 3, 2015 wweek.com

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